Good Dog Award Winner – Murray the Beagle

This week’s Good Dog Award goes to a formerly abused rescue dog, Murray the Beagle, who has found a career at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Murray is part of Atlanta’s Beagle Brigade. He’s “employed” as an agriculture detector dog and sniffs luggage to keep potentially harmful food products and pests from entering the United States illegally.

Murray had to go through extensive training before he could put his sensitive sniffer to work at the airport. In a few weeks, he’ll become a full fledged member of the Beagle Brigade.

This is quite an accomplishment for a rescued beagle that had a very rocky start in life. Murray was rescued by Alcovy Pet Rescue, Inc. from the Northeast Georgia Animal Shelter. It appeared to shelter workers and rescuers that Murray had been abused. Most of his tail had to be amputated when he came to the rescue. It appeared that his previous owners had tried to self-dock Murray’s tail by tying a tight band around it, effectively cutting off the circulation so it basically just rots off. This is horribly painful for the dogs and is against the law in Georgia. Murray was also missing half of one of his ears.

Alcovy Pet Rescue nursed Murray back to health and started a socialization program to get him used to other animals and people. Alcovy stepped into help Murray after the shelter had posted on Facebook for help. Murray’s foster mom, Claudette Towe, noticed that while Murray was recuperating that he appeared very motivated by food. Towe called Kathleen Warfield, a training specialist at the National Detector Training Center.

Murray fit the agriculture detection dog model, and the rest is history. Warfield said that Murray loves being in the airport and working to help his handler. It’s a happy ending for Murray and proof that rescue dogs rock (along with the fabulous people that save them).

So our Good Dog of the Week Award goes to Murray the Beagle and all the people at the Northeast Georgia Animal Shelter, Alcovy Pet Rescue, and everyone at the Atlanta Beagle Brigade. What a great example of helping a good dog be great!

Thank you to Amy Drew of Life With Dogs who originally reported this story. If you know of a dog with a special story, we’d love to hear it.